


NSR Enlightened Au: Black Mirror

by DivinityHaven



Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: DJ Subatomic is not a believer, Gen, I know Halloween is over but.........spooky time, There is something in the mirror and it's not Aaravos, This is an Au of my NSR Au, This is my first fanwork for this fandom....but not my first fanwork overall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27340078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivinityHaven/pseuds/DivinityHaven
Summary: While Tatiana, Eve, and Mayday are on a business trip to Metronome's annual music convention to meet with the other city heads; DJSS, Neon J, Zuke, Chef Sunshine, DJ Zam, and Daphne are left to run NSR Tower. With Halloween coming up, and to pass the time faster, the gang decides to play a fake ghost hunt. However, their fake hunt ends up turning very real as they discover a rather dark secret Tatiana's been hiding.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	NSR Enlightened Au: Black Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Au of NSR Enlightened which is my big Au I am still working on. This Au is basically a different version of how the NSR cast end up getting involved in the main conflict of Enlightened. This was really inspired by Steven's Halloween Stream, though it follows none of what happened on it. 
> 
> Don't ask me how Daphne, Zam, and Sunshine got to watch over NSR Tower; I just like working with secondary characters. Also Metronome is the name of the planet Vinyl City exists on.

Zuke sighed as he plopped down on one of the many sofas in NSR Tower’s main lounge. He continued flipping through his phone, looking over all the pictures Mayday had added to her social media account since boarding the NSR private jet two hours ago; she was really excited to accompany Tatiana and Eve to Metronome’s Annual Music Convention. He was excited for her; this was a big chance for May to show how important rock music was to the rest of the world and how it could be incorporated into collabs to maximize energy output.

“You alright Zuke?” Called Zam’s voice as Zuke pulled down his phone to look at the radio host.

“Yea, just bored.” The drummer answered, looking over at Daphne and Chef Sunshine who were casually chatting. 

“You miss her already, don’t you?” Zam asked, obviously meaning Mayday.

“Yea, things are usually so lively with her around and now they are just dull.” Zuke replied. 

“I see what you mean, Mayday is quite an energetic individual!” Zam chuckled, recalling the guitarist’s contagious enthusiasm. 

“Alright! Here we are!” The charismatic voice of 1010’s manager called out from the hall. “The best board games in all of Vinyl City!!” The cyborg sung as he entered the lounge with an armful of games.  


DJ Subatomic Supernova followed behind him, carrying a second armful of games. 

“Oh yeah!! I hope you guys have Sorry!, I am the queen of that game!” Daphne cheered, running over to the dj and the cyborg as they set the games down on the table. 

“I bet I could take that title from you! I’ve honed my skills over the course of many game nights with my sons!” Neon J challenged, leaning down at her. 

“You bet huh?! Well, I would like to see you try!” She challenged back.

Zuke laughed as he watched the cyborg and tourist immediately sit down and pull the game out, unfolding the board on the table and selecting their pieces. Sunshine jumped in excitedly and Supernova calmly sat down and grabbed his chosen four characters. This was going to be quite an interesting night with how soon competition was setting in, with board games no less. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a couple hours of board games, and Neon J and Daphne challenging each other time and time again the group had reached a lag of boredom. Zuke found himself on his phone again, looking over more photos that Mayday had posted; they had landed in Treble Cliffs’ airport on time and were enjoying a nice meal at a local restaurant.

“So, what do you guys want to do now? There is still plenty of time left.” Zam queried.

“Let’s do a ghost hunt!” Sunshine chirped. “NSR Tower is massive, and if we turned off all lights in this half of the building, I bet you it would be a really creepy atmosphere!” 

“You know that sounds like it would actually be fun!” Daphne agreed. “Plus, it would get us in the mood for Halloween!”

“This is preposterous! Ghosts aren’t even real!” Supernova huffed. “We would just be sneaking around like a bunch of simpletons!” 

“It’s better than sitting around here and doing nothing.” Zam stated, jumping off the sofa to stand by Sunshine and Daphne. 

“We are going to be watching this place for the next four days Sub.” Zuke chimed in. “I don’t want to waste all this time sitting on my phone.”

“Again, ghosts are not real and all we would be doing is a fake ghost hunt! A fake hunt for fake anomalies.” Supernova bluntly shot back.

“Come on Sub, it won’t be that bad. I need to practice my scare tactics anyways.” Neon J added, getting up and grabbing the dj's arm, pulling him off the sofa. 

“Ugh! Fine, but when this “hunt” turns boring don’t complain about it to me.” The space dj groaned. 

“It won’t be boring!” Sunshine retorted. “Besides, the blood moon will be out in an hour so when we turn off all the lights and just have that to guide us it will definitely set the spooky mood!” She added with a giggle. 

“If you say so.” Supernova groaned again.  


\----------------------------------------------------------------------

At first the fake ghost hunt was a bit awkward as everyone tried to act scared to fit the mood a bit more, but as the sun started to set and the environment began to fade into darkness the already darkened rooms of NSR Tower started to really feel haunting. Daphne and Sunshine got into the official ghost hunter attitude fast, and were eagerly lurking around corners and commenting on how the sudden chilled breezes were spiritual cold spots when they were definitely because of air conditioning. Zuke found himself far more jumpy than normal, and Zam had lost his chilled demeanor for an incredibly skittish, ready to flee at a moments notice, one. Neon J was loving it, having no real fear of the spooky atmosphere, he took full advantage of using his autotune to distort his voice and spook the drummer and radio host out of their skins; laughing each time he did. Supernova was not phased by anything and was begrudgingly following along to humor the others. 

At some point they had found themselves in Tatiana’s wing of the tower and had stalked around her office room pretending that they were following the spirit of the “Mystery Mural Man” and were trying to figure out what had happened to him. As they finished that “lead” and left back into the hallway Daphne spotted a large steal door at the end of it. 

“Ooooo! That looks spooky enough! I bet you there are all kinds of spirits in there!” She pointed at it enthusiastically. 

“You’re right!” Sunshine agreed, jogging forward to the door and knocking on it. The steel echoes resounding back in response to the force. “Let’s go check it out!” 

“Not so fast!” Supernova cut in. “This is the storage room; Tatiana keeps valuable things in there. You all are not allowed in.” 

“You are though, right?” Daphne asked. “So, then you can go in there with us as a supervisor, and we can investigate it, as long as we don’t touch anything, right???” 

“You all are still not allowed in there.” Neon J added, defending Supernova’s stance. “Tatiana says the items in there are far too important.” 

“Well then Zam and I can stay out in the hall while the girls go in, after all the less of us in there the lower the chance of things breaking. Also, I’m sure the girls won’t touch anything while they are in there. I mean, it’s not like there are world ending devices in there right?” Zuke stated ending his response in a chuckle. 

“Well, there aren’t any destructive devices in there but..” Supernova started.

“Then we should be fine!” Daphne chirped.

“Fine, as long as you don’t break anything.” Neon J sighed, leaning his sonar screen into his hand. He wasn’t about to deal with anymore begging, he had enough of that with his sons.

Supernova turned to Neon with an incredulous look, shocked that he would give in so easily. 

“Hey, if they don’t break anything then we don’t have to worry.” Neon J explained.

Supernova sighed deeply and “facepalmed”. “You guys are going to be the death of me.” He groaned, walking to the steel door and opening it. 

“Thank you!” Sunshine and Daphne cheered as they stepped into the storage room only to see a massive space filled with shelves of items old and new sitting under dust. 

“This is huge!” Sunshine gasped. “It’s more like a warehouse than a storage room.” She turned back to Supernova as he entered, followed cautiously by Neon J.

“Tatiana has gathered many items over the years.” The dj explained, gazing at an old Qwasa generator, Mark 1 edition. “Many of these are just sentimental objects that chronicle NSR’s progress from the beginning. So again, DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING.” 

The girls nodded as they continued through the rows of shelves, finally stopping at one shelf that was far isolated from the rest. It was sitting in the right corner, underneath a window that was letting the amber light of the blood moon flood in, and to the right of it was a second door that led out to the hallway. 

“Ohhhh, I’m getting some creepy vibes over here!” Sunshine gasped, moving towards the middle of the shelf while using her phone to “scan for spiritual energy”. 

Daphne looked over the items, spotting something out of place; of all the items on the shelf only one was covered in a small tarp. She reached out and pulled the tarp off, revealing a beautiful silver filigree handle mirror. 

“Oooo this looks so beautiful!” She said, standing on her tip toes to get a better look at it. 

Supernova strode up beside her, trying to keep her from reaching it. “I thought we agreed not to touch anything.” He stated, blocking her line of sight with his hand. 

“I didn’t touch anything though.” The tourist retorted. 

“You pulled off the tarp.” Supernova pointed at the heaped fabric, a bit of frustration entering his tone.

“She didn’t touch the handle though, and it is only a mirror.” Sunshine pointed out. 

Supernova sighed again, louder this time, his patience obviously starting to wear. 

“Can I please look at it? I promise I will be delicate with it and handle it with great care.” Daphne pleaded. 

“She can look at it, but very briefly Sub.” Neon J added, nodding at the mirror.

“Fine! But if it breaks you are telling Tatiana that it’s your fault.” The dj huffed at the cyborg, grabbing the mirror and handing it to Daphne. 

As Daphne turned it over, she noted the beautifully crafted silver edges of the mirror as well as its handle and the sudden sharp symbol on its back that contrasted heavily with the rest of the design. She had to do a double take, that’s how out of place it seemed, and she tilted the mirror back and forth to get a better angle of the marking. 

“Hey what is this symbol?” She asked turning to Supernova and showing the mirror’s back to him. 

Supernova scrutinized the surface of the mirror’s back; he had never seen this mark before nor did he know what it meant; and that frustrated him. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” He pondered. 

A sudden knocking at the door next to the shelf caused all four of them to jump, with Daphne letting out a squeak and tightening her grip on the mirror in fear of dropping it. Supernova, who was frustrated in general, was now more frustrated with being spooked like that and sternly trudged over to the door, opening it to find Zuke with Zam behind him.

“Yesssss?” Supernova hissed as he started down at the guys.

“Dude, don’t leave us alone like that! You all disappeared in that room and left us out in that gloomy hallway!” Zuke chided. 

“We heard your voices down that hall and followed them to this door, I thought we all agreed not to leave each other behind!” 

“We never agreed on that. All we agreed on was playing this ridiculous ghost hunt.” Supernova retorted, not a fan of being accused of anything. 

“Hey, its all okay now! So, let’s just calm down.” Sunshine calmly cut in, adding a gentle downwards motion with her hands to add to the point.

“Woah!” Daphne gasped, everyone turning to stare at her.

She had turned the mirror around so that the glass was facing her, the surface of the thing was dark, more so than regular mirrors. 

“Where did Tatiana get this black mirror from?” Daphne quizzically asked.

Supernova brought a hand to his chin. “Hmmm, I didn’t even know she had one.” He answered. 

“Did she pick it up on her travels somewhere then?” Zam pondered peering in through the doorway to get a look at the object. 

“Possibly.” Supernova replied. “Though she never told us about this, she usually tells us about the things in this room for inventory purposes and sometimes just as conversation points.”

Daphne, now transfixed on the mirror and ignoring the current conversation, brought it up so she could better look at its face. The surface was perfectly smooth and there wasn’t a single scratch on it, then something happened, Daphne didn’t know what but she was sure the surface shifted a bit. She had to be sure of what she had seen and, catching the moonlit window in the corner of her eye, decided to use the intense lunar light to better examine the device. Though, just as the mirror crossed into the copper light an intense and sudden burning sensation seared into her palm.

“OW!” Daphne screamed, dropping the mirror onto the storage room floor. “THIS THING IS ON FIRE!” 

“What?!” Zuke asked, shifting around to face the tourist. 

Daphne winced as she showed her hand to the others, a burn mark appearing across her palm. “That thing burnt me! I was holding it in the moonlight and all of a sudden my hand started burning!” She hissed through her teeth. 

“Hmmm how peculiar. Mirrors aren’t supposed to do that. Come along Daphne let’s get you back to the kitchen and put some ice on that.” Supernova pushed the storage room door open more and motioned for Daphne to follow him through; forgoing any care about the mirror’s condition.

Zam and Sunshine followed swiftly after, no longer wanting to stay in the room after what just happened. Zuke and Neon stayed behind and looked back at the mirror, it was sitting in the burnt orange moonlight that was beaming through the window from the blood moon. Zuke made a motion to step towards it, but something in his mind told him otherwise and he looked over at Neon J. 

“We should join the others. I don’t really think we need to stay here any longer.” He suggested, slowly walking out of the storage room. 

Neon J nodded in agreement, turning and following Zuke out of the room. He went to close the door behind them, and glanced one last time at the mirror sitting on the floor before blocking it from his sight behind the door. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the gang’s footsteps receded from the area the mirror remained motionless on the ground, the amber glow of the blood moon gleamed off its silver handle and darkened glass. Suddenly, the mirror shuddered and its glass cracked; a long, jagged line arching from one corner of it’s face to the other. A faint cloud of smoke trailed from the crack, fading away into the space of the storage room. Then a viscous black liquid seeped out of the crack covering the mirror’s entire face before oozing over the silver rims and onto the floor around it. The dark puddle spreading out across the rest of the moonlit storage room until it covered a sizeable part of the floor, then it stopped. As the copper moonlight continued to shine down on it the ooze began to bubble and foam angrily, it’s surface rippling and rising until a large glob of it rose from the right corner. 

The slimy glob slammed down on the floor with a gooey smack and as the viscous mess settled it retreated back to inky pool; revealing a set of large, curved, onyx talons and a larger black, scaled paw. Another frothy, oozing mass shot up from the left corner, landing forcefully just as the one before it; this one retreating to reveal an identical black paw, complete with more sharp talons. Then the dark pond seemed to still, as if resting, before the onyx talons dug firmly into the flooring and strained as if they were being pulled back by another force. The viscous goo undulated furiously in its center before a huge oozing shape forced itself up from the floor and forward towards the window, the scaled paws following suit as even more of the mass pulled itself out of the pool. As another bump, attached to the main shape, was pulled from the ooze it swung forward and out to side from under the mass, another clawed paw revealed itself as it tore from its inky cocoon followed shortly by its twin on the opposite side. As the form hoisted the rest of itself from the gunk the pond of ooze shrunk, following the thing from its place on the ground to where it stood now, bathed in the cooper light. 

The shape stood firm, shifting slightly and the dark ooze slowly drooled down its sides and dripped onto the ground beneath, vanishing into the form’s shadow. As the viscous goo drained away and disappeared, more of the creature came to light. A long, scale covered body stretched itself out across more than half of the room’s length and a long, lean neck with an angular head attached stretched upwards, scraping the roof of the large storage room. Big black, membranous wings clung to the sides of the creature’s body, with wickedly curved talon-like spikes curling from the end of each wing finger. A long, obsidian tail snaked along the floor lined with jagged spines and at its tip sat a weirdly angled conglomerate of spikes that were hard to describe in any clear way. The creature shifted its weight back and forth on its four limbs and inhaled deeply, throwing its neck back; revealing a sharply angled head with horns that circled around its back and pointed upwards and downwards, almost like a twisted crown. 

“Ahhhhh, finally!” It wheezed out, finding the sound of its own voice rather surprising. Though one would be shocked to hear their own voice again after twenty three longs years of entrapment. 

“Finally, FREE!” It cheered, ending the last of the sentence in a growl as it looked up at the moon from the storage room window.

The creature gazed back at the mirror and narrowed its eyes, how badly it wanted to obliterate what remained of the thing, but the fear of reactivating it and ending up imprisoned once again held it back. Instead it turned its focus to the window and the open air that laid beyond it. The beast spread its black, shadowy wings and lunged forward; crashing through the window and the wall as well, before heading out into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh oh! Looks like the gang has freed something, or rather someone from the black mirror Tatiana had in that storage room.  
> 
> 
> I kind of hear Halloweve's voice in his current state to be sort of garbled from years of being in a mirror pocket dimension, kind of like the voice of the Simulacra from the first Simulacra game, which adds to his creepy factor.


End file.
